A vendetta claimed lives of another five members of a family raising the death toll to 15 while a woman injured seriously because the police failed to arrest the killers, who killed 10 members of a family in village Khopianwala (Lodhran) some 80-km south of Multan.
According to details, 11 persons, Hazaray Khan, Bakki Baloch, Muhammad Akhtar, Ghulam Abbas, Abdul Ghafoor, Muhammad Mustafa, Sadiq, Aslam, Ajmal, Shahid Mustafa, Mazhar, and Saeed Ahmed raided three homes of their relatives to take revenge of old enmity and they killed 10 members of a family on September 4, 2007, but the police failed to arrest them. However, a police outpost set up for their security in the village.
Lodhran DPO Manzoor Sarwar removed this post on the complaint of villagers last week that they were extorting money from innocent people and harassing them. Taking advantage of it, the killers made a second strike on November 25 (Sunday) at 7.30 pm and they killed Qadar Bakhsh, an elder of the family, his two sons Abdul Hameed and Saeed Ahmed, and grandsons Rashid and Sher Muhammad while his daughter Sakina w/o Muhammad Yousaf injured seriously. Police reached the site at 8.45 pm.
When contacted, Lodhran DPO Manzoor Sarwar said: "It is a tragic incident of vendetta and I have formed a special team to arrest the killers and I am hopeful that they would be arrested in a couple of days." He also said the police had arrested two out of 11 culprits.